With a solo exhibition, West introduces young Polish painter Radek Szlaga in the Netherlands. In this exhibition called Freedom Club, Szlaga explores the life of the Polish/American freedom fighter Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, and his non-existing organization the Freedom Club. Szlaga will create a site-specific total installation incorporating paintings and ‘old-school’ projections, thus providing a visual manifest. With this manifest, he shows an alternative version of reality, giving comments on the American Dream in an ironic and dream-like way.

Radek Szlaga is a very prolific artist who makes works inspired by the media at a punishing tempo. Just as fast as news becomes history, Szlaga paints his comments. He is fascinated by the banality and absurdity of everyday life, the pop culture and the omnipresent kitsch. His anarchistic works show icons that have their roots in his own youth, as well as in the films he saw in those days. Cows, pigs and other farm animals, heroes and angels: they all frequently appear in his work. He confronts reality with our own image of reality. In unnatural, almost psychedelic colours and ‘unfinished’ pictures, he brings time to a standstill. As a traditional painter, he investigates a medium of which he masters the technique unerringly. However, there are no rules in his grotesque universe, and baroque aesthetics prevail.

The Freedom Club exhibition at West will be the first in a series of three. The second and third display will be shown in succession on a boat to the US and at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. In an imaginary story, Szlaga will examine Ted Kaczynski’s various personalities: that of scientist, drifter, hermit, professor, serial killer, idealist and hero. Not because Szlaga identifies himself with Kaczynski due to their similar background in Poland and the United States, but because he is intrigued by the madness behind all this. For Szlaga, the focus lies on the context and the dialogue between the images: on myths, copies, falsifications, reproductions and transparency. In the three-dimensional presentation that he creates, we might see more than is actually there.

On the occasion of this exhibition, a work will be published with a text written by Simon Rees (curator and writer, Vilnius). One week before the opening of the exhibition, the artist will be available for interviews, by appointment.

For press photographs and more information please email
marie-jose@west-denhaag.nl or call +31(0)70.3925359.